Laura Spitz, J.S.D.’06, Appointed Associate Dean for International AffairsIthaca, NEW YORK, September 18, 2012

With the commencement of the school year, Cornell Law has introduced a new leadership position, and welcomed back an old friend to fill it. Laura Spitz, J.S.D.’06, is now Associate Dean for International Affairs.

The deanship was created following the retirement this spring of Larry Bush, executive director of the Clarke Center for International and Comparative Legal Studies. Spitz will oversee the Clarke Program as its Executive Director and also support the management of the Berger International Legal Studies Program. “I am meant to ensure that the already fantastic international and comparative legal studies programming continues,” says Spitz, “and at the same time consider whether the programs (or certain aspects of the programs) should be changed or grown.”

“We are delighted to have Laura Spitz join us in this important position,” says Stewart J. Schwab, the Allan R. Tessler Dean. “As a J.S.D. graduate of Cornell, she already knows the Law School well, and we look forward to having her coordinate and highlight our many international activities and programs.”

Spitz returns to Ithaca from Vancouver, B.C., where she was a partner in the Corporate and Commercial group of Miller Thomson LLP. From 2005 to 2010, she was a law professor at the University of Colorado and also consulted on a wide range of legal matters for U.S. clients. Spitz has testified before a Senate Committee on Bankruptcy Reform at the Georgia State Legislature, taught C.L.E.s and made presentations in her areas of expertise both domestically and internationally, including at the University of British Columbia, the University of Toronto, Yale University, the University of New Mexico, and Emory University.

“It will be no easy task to fill Larry Bush’s shoes,” says Spitz. “But I am very excited to join and learn from a group of incredibly talented administrators. I have been for many years a lawyer, and I was also for several years a law professor. I believe this position permits me to have the best of both worlds, at one of the best universities in the country, and I feel very fortunate.”